Substance Abuse and Trauma in Incarcerated Women

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The proposed study will evaluate Covington's Helping Women Recover (HWR) plus Beyond Trauma (BT) curriculum with female offenders at Eddie Warrior Correctional Facility in Taft, Oklahoma. The purpose of the proposed study is to expand previous findings by including a comparison group of women that are not receiving treatment but are otherwise eligible, and by using outside evaluators to conduct the assessments. Furthermore, this study will extend the outcomes measured in previous evaluations by including measures of sleep disturbance, posttraumatic cognitions, and a more extensive assessment of trauma-related symptoms. The hypotheses for this study are listed below:

Incarcerated women with substance use disorders and history of trauma enrolled in the integrated treatment program (HWR plus BT) will report significantly fewer symptoms on measures of posttraumatic stress and associated cognitions, substance use, depression, and related symptoms following treatment than those in the comparison group.

Those in the treatment group will improve significantly more than those in the comparison group on the symptoms listed above.

Four treatment rounds will be conducted, and a goal of 20 women (10 from each group) will be recruited to participate in each round. A new treatment group will start every four months. Sessions are approximately 2 hours each, 3-4 times per week over four months in a group format. This treatment program will focus on the integrated treatment of trauma and substance abuse in women. Versions of the curriculum exist both for community and corrections populations. In this intervention the corrections version will be used.

No Intervention: comparison group

a comparison group of incarcerated women will receive the pre and post assessments with no interventions.

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